As a former PCV, and specifically as Peace Corps Desk Officer for the DR when Director Williams was there, I congratulate him and wish him well.

There are a lot of priorities and pressures to leap into large-scale expansion of the Peace Corps.

These are well meaning impulses, but I urge Director Williams to concentrate first on extricating the Peace Corps from its current, UNHEALTHY intimate integration with the US foreign assistance establishment (which itself is in danger of being subsumed within the US foreign policy apparatus).

The Peace Corps, in its best and most effective incarnation, is different from USAID, and the Peace Corps is even MORE different from the US State Department. All three arms of US overseas relations will be stronger if they are independent and free to pursue the unique benefits that flow from their different programs and constituencies.

I offer this advice based on my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in pre-intervention Chile, as a headquarters staff member in the LA region, including 2 years as Program and Training Chief for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, and my last forty years of working in several dimensions of US foreign operations — governmental, quasi-governmental, and private.

Bruce Potter

President Island Resources Foundation 35 Years of Environmental Planning for Small Island Development

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About Bruce

Work for sustainable development of small islands; ex-Peace Corps (Volunteer and staff) in LA & Caribbean; cruised Caribbean on S/Y Meander for three years; like small tropical islands, French canals, Umbria, Tasmania, and NZ. Married 50 years. President of Island Resources Foundation.

One Response to Agenda for Aaron Williams, new Peace Corp Director, RPCV in the Dominican Republic

Comments from other RPCVs and Staff from the DR about the same time Aaron Williams was there:MB who still lives in the DR:I hope he gets your message as it is right on the mark.I would also add that many countries need to be re-focused: we should be using trained Dominican for many PC slots. . . it will be a challenge to rethink the whole organization . . . he has a great background for making improvements.BJ (everyone knows BJ):– I agree